By CYDNEY GILLIS
Staff Reporter

It’s not hard to tell that Nigeria overwhelmed Susan Partnow.

The director of Seattle-based Global Citizen Journey took 19 Americans on a trip to the Niger Delta Nov. 16 to Dec. 2. Though Partnow has been on many “citizen diplomacy” trips over the years, this was her first as a leader — in a West African country where things are very different.

The sweltering heat and lack of clean water were just the start. In Nigeria, Partnow says, time is fluid: people don’t make and keep appointments like Westerners do. And corruption is rampant: police routinely seek bribes and builders often leave public-works projects half-finished.

As a result, Partnow says, many Nigerians expressed cynicism about the do-gooder American delegation and its focus on the destruction and poverty caused by oil drilling in the Niger Delta. Despite the odds, however, the group achieved its mission — building a library — and, in their own small way, Partnow says, will continue to make a difference.

After arriving in Lagos, the Americans and a counterpart group of Nigerian delegates traveled to Warri and the coastal village of Oporoza, where the group completed and opened a regional Niger Delta Friendship Library. The delegates stocked the library with 70-pound boxes of books that each brought over on the plane.

The library project got national media coverage there. Members of the delegation are now forming a micro-lending program to help village women start household businesses.

“ People were really amazed that we accomplished [building the library] because the norm in Nigeria is for projects to be begun and abandoned,” Partnow says. “All over the place you see half-finished buildings that show how you can’t count on anyone — which adds to the disillusionment.”

Partnow and Global Citizen co-founder Mary Ella Keblusek chose Oporoza because it sits squarely in the pollution and poverty left behind after 50 years of drilling by Chevron, Shell, and other oil giants. Though the region now supplies the United States with 10 percent of its oil and generates most of Nigeria’s wealth, oil pollution has destroyed the traditional livelihoods of farming and fishing in Oporoza and other Delta villages.

In a meeting at Chevron’s Nigerian offices, Partnow says executives insisted the company has changed its practices. But the group later saw a Chevron gas flare — a toxic burn-off of natural gas — that contradicted the sincerity.

In Oporoza, where the delegates lived for a week, residents told Partnow that a filthy mudflat was once a white, sandy beach. Because fish have become so scarce and there are no jobs to be had, village women requested a meeting with Partnow, giving her a list of demands that included bigger boats for ocean fishing.

“ It was very painful because, of course, because I don’t have money. I don’t have any way of providing them with anything,” she says.

Later, Partnow says she came up with an idea: If she and some of the delegates could come up with $500 or $600 each, they could create a micro-lending fund to back small endeavors.

She and delegates Peter Titcomb, a high school teacher, and Leslye Wood, a freelance writer, each contributed and are now trying to raise a total of $5,000, which will be loaned in small amounts to individuals or groups. Some of the Nigerian delegates will provide training for the projects, which could include planting cassava, raising chickens, or selling honey.

If the projects go well, Partnow says, Chevron told her it would put up more money. In the meantime, to help them prepare business plans, one of the village women who can read and write stepped forward at a meeting and volunteered to teach the others.

“ To me, the key is not so much the economics as the empowerment, because women in the village have very little status and therefore little confidence,” Partnow says. “My desire is to get the women to start working together and feeling like they have some control over their life.” 

[On the Air]

Extended coverage of the Niger Delta continues on KBCS 91.3 FM in January. Listen or check www.kbcs.fm for more details.